EMMPLEKZ – IZOD Days [ENG/PL]

ENG: Baron Mordant has a diary, he has apparently been keeping it hidden in plain view under the heading of a little blue bird. He’s opted to put these musings to music but not just any kind of music. He’s recruited the cartographer of voids and empty spaces known as Ekoplekz to do the honors. And honors they assuredly are, you see, I’ve been waiting for a long long time for these two to collaborate. Mordant Music the label has put out quite a few things tinged by the Plekz so the chronology of this project probably goes back farther than we’ll ever know. But I’m feeling a bit paleontological, so lets take a few moments to set aside our daily errands and consider what’s been snuck out on a black vinyl disc or routed o’er the lines via a digital flutter.

Izod, the brand, was ubiquitous in the 1980s, everyone you wanted to be and everywhere you wanted to go, that goddamn crocodile was emblematic of. In the era which saw the dawning of saturation brand marketing, Izod were one of the leading lights. They’d slap that thing everywhere they could, particularly sporting events; even though we call it soccer here it is a well known fact of how insidiously steeped the world of football was on the other side of the pond with this particular outfitter’s wares. Now that the years have passed or rather in spite of them passing, our heroes find themselves in a state of immersion here. The Baron’s words which are sometimes spoken and oddly sung at other places along the way, are of a particularly vintage British slant. He even sneaks the MMite onto the first song, surreptitiously recording her toasting some event; the cunning devil that he is, he then expands on the quick witted wordplay to showcase something which I can only assume to be thoroughly English: doing the daily.

Now what this means is anyone’s guess. He might be showing us his routine, he could be running circles around us on a cockney detour or what I suspect he’s up to is chronicling the malaise that comes from being in a country so obsessed with the tragicomedy of royalty and exclusive engagements that unemployment and rampant economic downturns are the order of the day. But like the song says, step lively! There’s a matter of prestige involved here, possibly, maybe, ok definitely could happen, well it’s not, oh sod it the roof’s collapsing Mr. Twist of course you can’t have more.

Bringing up the musical end of things, we find Ekoplekz cracking his own mold and injecting some very colorful bursts to serve as a counter-point to the rather drab prose which the Baron lets fall from the quill. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s gone down yet another path wrought out of dub, digital effects and warped atmospheres no doubt all elegantly bound up in signature magnetic tape. The way he utilizes the spaces between the cadences of what words are infused onto the vinyl is a wonder to discover. It is as if he plotted out where each consonant and vowel trailed off and then proceeded to cram in the most unlikely collection of instrumentation(?) he could create. I say create because there is no way in the world what he’s operating with is pre-set under any circumstances. If he doesn’t build his own contraptions to manufacture this kind of work, I’m stunned but the prevailing wisdom I’m going to choose says that his arsenal is one which only he knows the rules and operating protocol for.

I find myself flowing in and out of consciousness, time and space become abstract concepts which are then re-cast into the scenes which come out of my speakers before resting firmly behind my heavy lids. This is not to say that IZOD Days is boring in any sense of the word but it comes from a universe all it’s own. A definite yet somehow indefinite existential voyage you’d be a fool to pass up. Tangible thought becomes only shadows, forms of sounds, parallel inverses inverted; the order of the day? Who’s to say.